


Stargate Continuum:  A Study in Lists

by lunabee34 (Lorraine)



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Angst, Gen, Stargate: Continuum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-17 03:25:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1372138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lorraine/pseuds/lunabee34
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lantern slides for the movie:</p><p>
  <i>When finally Ba’al is dead, when his plan has failed, Colonel Cameron Mitchell is marooned for the next forty years in the timeline he has repaired.  In the interest of preserving the history he would like to see repeat itself, the Colonel promises himself never to....</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stargate Continuum:  A Study in Lists

In the instant that Ba’al fatally stabs General Jack O’Neill in the shoulder,

1\. Teal’c is on Chulak, leading his Lord’s Jaffa in a training exercise. At his right hand stands his son Rya’c and at his left stands his master Bra’tac. They are three generations of military expertise honed to a killing edge and they have remained unvanquished since Rya’c was old enough to hold a staff weapon. Lord Ba’al has promised the Jaffa freedom, the first and only of his kind to do so, and that pledge fuels their battle rage. Teal’c will die for Ba’al because he has guaranteed his child’s freedom, but above all Teal’c hopes that he will live to see that day.

2\. Sam stops breathing. And in that millisecond between the next to last and the last words that Jack will ever speak to her, to any of them--Sam thinks, “I can sleep at night without you in my bed.” They’ve shared floors and tents and caves and more cells than she cares to remember, but not that. Never that. And she will deeply mourn the loss of that fragile, distant hope, but it won’t destroy her. “I can do my job without you looking over my shoulder,” she thinks next. “And it’s been a long time since you looked.” Jack is obviously dead now, his beautiful eyes so completely blank that her stomach turns. “But I don’t know how to live in a universe where you’re dead.” And then Sam’s breath rips through her lungs again because she is running, running and the Gate is so very far away.

3\. Vala Mal Doran is running from Qetesh. Not literally, of course, but in the deeps of her mind where Vala now lives. “You can’t hide,” Qetesh says. “You should know that by now, foolish child.” Vala draws a curtain between them, a rich veil of Andulian silk, and Qetesh laughs as she rends it in two. “Such taste, Vala. I am continually reminded that I chose wisely when I chose you for a Host.” Qetesh reaches for her and Vala twists away, out of reach. “Go to hell,” Vala says. “Oh come now, my sweet. Lord Ba’al has arranged such a beautiful display for us. Such glorious carnage. Don’t you want to see?” And though Vala does not, nor has she ever, wanted to see such a thing, the choice ceased to be hers long ago.

4\. Daniel thinks, “This isn’t part of the deal. I die and you watch, not the other way around.” Jack is talking, and Daniel knows what he’s choking out must be important, but Daniel can’t hear him. “This isn’t the way it’s supposed to happen,” he thinks.

5\. Ba’al resists the urge to rub his hands together and laugh maniacally. He supposes he’s spent too much time amongst the Tau’ri, but their clichés amuse him.

6\. Jack is sitting at his kitchen table with a steaming cup of coffee and Sara is frying eggs and Charlie is watching cartoons in the living room behind them. Jack is ruffling Daniel’s hair in the Gateroom and calling him Space Monkey and Daniel grins and grins back. Jack is watching _Star Wars_ with Teal’c. He is playing cards with Vala Mal Doran and drinking whiskey on the front porch with Hank and George. Jack is sitting next to Carter at the water’s edge, their legs so close her warmth soaks into his jeans, and even though neither of them says a damn thing for two hours, Jack can hear what she means all the same. Jack’s blood is pooling in the back of his throat and he is dying and he doesn’t want to leave, but he can’t say it hasn’t been a good run.

7\. Cam assumes command. This is his team; these are his people and he will see them through the Gate and to home or he will die trying.

When Dr. Daniel Jackson is huddled alone on the ice, floes cracking like thunder around him as the _Achilles_ sinks, he entertains the following thoughts:

1\. Shit. Yeah. That about covers it.

2\. And Jack. Yet again, that thought is too large, too raw, to articulate any further.

3\. He won’t let himself mourn Teal’c or Vala. They aren’t dead. Jack is dead. And Sam and Cam will die soon as well. Daniel was as good as dead the second he walked the plank. But Teal’c and Vala? They are Somewhere Else and they are alive and right now that has to be enough.

4\. Daniel wonders if Oma will rescue him this time. He wonders if he wants her to.

5\. He wishes that he could have wiped away Sam’s tears, even though his fingers would probably have frozen to her cheeks. Daniel thinks that if she lives, if she and Cam make it off this ice cube alive—she will probably scar there. He wholeheartedly wishes her the opportunity.

6\. That he’s never been so pleased to find himself on the business end of a weapon.

7\. Losing the leg won’t bother him as much as it would have ten years ago, Daniel realizes as the soldiers load him onto a stretcher. He’s lost so many things between then and now—his innocence, his wife, his self-respect at times—and his leg is certainly the least of these. What does it say about him, Daniel wonders, that he had to die more than once before he learned to accept disability with grace?

 

For the first 365 days of their exile, what is left of SG-1 engages in the following activities:

1\. Sam tries every single brand of cereal at Kroger, a new box every five days. She eats cereal for breakfast and for lunch and sometimes as a snack when she’s curled up on the couch watching TV programs she’s never heard of. This is a sign of depression and she knows it, but Sam can’t bring herself to care.

2\. Daniel writes notes to himself in the margins of his book. “You’re right,” he scribbles next to the third paragraph on page 287 and “Your translation is off,” next to the illustration of the cartouche on page 156. Daniel has always enjoyed talking to himself, but this is a little ridiculous.

3\. Cam rebuilds cars from the ground up, one after another. He starts with a sweet little ’67 Impala, coal black and shiny as an F-302. Cam’s knuckles become permanently smudged, the skin under his nails dark crescent moons.

4\. Daniel wonders why he doesn’t die from cascading entropic thing-a-majig, or whatever Sam called it all those years ago, and has to swallow down the grief when that phrase reminds him of Jack. The sheer implausibility of two Daniels trying to breathe the same air, share the same space, should kill them both but it doesn’t. Daniel wonders if he came back wrong that last time—just a little more or a little less than human. Just different enough that the laws of the universe don’t know what to do with him.

5\. Sam builds three long range radios and what will pass for a signal scrambler from items she purchases at hardware stores and from online surplus stores. She is careful not to buy the parts she needs outright but to cannibalize them from other sources. She stockpiles water and city maps and survival gear and always she watches the sky.

6\. Cam talks to his team all the time. “What about Heather? More hassle than she’s worth?” he asks Teal’c and Cam can hear so clearly the smirk underneath the answering, “Indeed.” Or “Wanna soup her up, Sam? See how fast this baby can fly?” and Sam’s remembered smile is so brilliant Cam must close his eyes against it. “Vala,” he says. “Daniel,” he says. “Get a room.” Vala sticks her tongue out at him and Daniel rolls his eyes and Cam goes back into his empty house and stretches out on the bed he has made with military precision and hopes his leg won’t ache enough to keep him awake again.

7\. They don’t work. Why should they? None of them will admit it, but they are waiting, biding their time, holding their breath and watching the edges of the world grow dim.

When finally Ba’al is dead, when his plan has failed, Colonel Cameron Mitchell is marooned for the next forty years in the timeline he has repaired. In the interest of preserving the history he would like to see repeat itself, the Colonel promises himself never to

1\. Make love to a woman. Or a man, for that matter. He’s stuck with his right hand for the rest of his natural life, which frankly blows, but he can’t risk it. Can’t risk an accidental pregnancy or an emotional entanglement of any kind. He’s sworn off friends, and lovers are twice that trouble. He can’t risk _mattering_ that much to anyone. Not anymore.

2\. Tell Ernest Littlefield how to dial home.

3\. Bet on the Yankees in 1932, 1936-39, 1941, 1943, 1947, 1949-53, 1956, 1958, or 1961-62. Cam figures if he makes it to 1977, he deserves a little break.

4\. Warn Jack about locking up his gun or Daniel’s parents about loitering beneath columns or John Sheppard about Afghanistan.

5\. Pull a Marty McFly and write himself a one-liner—“Don’t drop the bomb, Cam.”

6\. Pen a script for a little show he’d call _The Twilight Zone._

7\. Wish he wasn’t alone. He doesn’t know what happened in those fifty years that never were; Teal’c wouldn’t tell him. But Cam knows himself and he is certain that he must have been bitter and restless and violently angry. Sometimes he is amazed that Teal’c still wanted to be his Teammate after five decades locked in a tin can with him. So, no he doesn’t wish the others were here to share his misery, his impotence. Cam has always been prepared to die for his world, for his country, for his Team, but this death by degrees is more than he can bear. Sometimes at night, he stays awake trying to remember what everyone he ever knew looked like—his mom, the first girl he kissed, General Landry, his Team. He can see the dark blonde of Sam’s low-slung ponytail and the sharp line of her chin, but he’s forgotten the exact shade of her eyes. Siler’s grin is fading from memory and he can’t quite recall what Walter’s last name is anymore. Once, Cam catches himself wanting to repeat a joke to Bill Lee and the futility of that desire leaves him on his knees in the head for the better part of a day. All these promises Cam has made, they hurt him clear to the bone, but this final vow is the hardest to keep.


End file.
